Environment
stoat | July 4, 2010A reader wrote:
I am a recent reader of your blog Stoat. I am very interested in the Climate Change issue but I am not a scientist. I read Joe Romm, Island of Doubt and General news about the subject. You are the first expert I have come across that seems to have a balanced opinion on climate change. I have searched through your archives but I can't really get a complete feel of what your opinion is. I get lost sometimes when you explain the technical stuff or use abbreviations for things that I don't know what the abbreviations are for. Could you do a blog post (in an untechnical format…
jstemwedel | July 3, 2010When you're investigating charges that a scientist has seriously deviated from accepted practices for proposing, conducting, or reporting research, how do you establish what the accepted practices are? In the wake of ClimateGate, this was the task facing the Investigatory Committee at Penn State University investigating the allegation (which the earlier Inquiry Committee deemed worthy of an investigation) that Dr. Michael E. Mann "engage[d] in, or participate[d] in, directly or indirectly, ... actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for…
jstemwedel | July 2, 2010Way back in early February, we discussed the findings of the misconduct inquiry against Michael Mann, an inquiry that Penn State University mounted in the wake of "numerous communications (emails, phone calls, and letters) accusing Dr. Michael E. Mann of having engaged in acts that included manipulating data, destroying records and colluding to hamper the progress of scientific discourse around the issue of global warming from approximately 1998". Those numerous communications, of course, followed upon the well-publicized release of purloined email messages from the Climate Research Unit (…
oracknows | July 1, 2010Regular readers may have noticed something happening around ScienceBlogs. As PZ pointed out, a little malware somehow infiltrated the ScienceBlogs collective, and many of us appear to have turned into zombies. It's a veritable Zombie Day, complete with illustrations by Joseph Hewitt, creator of Gearhead.
Obviously, with anything having to do with zombies, there's only one thing for this blog, namely a certain undead German dictator with an insatiable thirst for human brains, who leaves idiotic analogies in his wake. Unfortunately, with the 2008 election being behind us, there was a dearth of…
clock | July 1, 2010Last week, my SciBling Jason Goldman interviewed me for his blog. The questions were not so much about blogging, journalism, Open Access and PLoS (except a little bit at the end) but more about science - how I got into it, what are my grad school experiences, what I think about doing research on animals, and such stuff. Jason posted the interview here, on his blog, on Friday, and he also let me repost it here on my blog as well, under the fold:
Here at Thoughtful Animal headquarters, we're starting a new series of seven-question interviews with people who are doing or have done animal…
sastyk | July 1, 2010In the spirit of helping my readers increase their preparedness, I thought I'd remind you that you have 0 more days before Zombie Day to shop and get ready for Zombie attacks. So just in case there are zombies coming down your pike, and you aren't ready, I offer a reprint of a piece I wrote about what to do if you haven't been preparing or storing food, water or medicines (as everyone from FEMA to the American Red Cross advises every citizen to do). Crisis shopping is really not the way to do this - you are better off making preparations in advance, but just in case you have been ignoring…
nisbetmc | June 30, 2010Held in over 30 countries, the World Wide Views on Global Warming initiative represents the state-of-the-art in new approaches to public engagement, the subject of several recent reports and meetings. This video features a short documentary on the Australian event.
Over the weekend, my friend Chris Mooney contributed an excellent op-ed to the Washington Post pegged to an American Academy of Arts and Sciences event yesterday. The op-ed previewed a longer essay by Chris released at the event in which he described some of the major themes expressed in the transcripts of three meetings convened…
illconsidered | June 30, 2010 Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Disruption News Information overload is pattern recognitionJune 27, 2010 Chuckles, Post etc., G8/G20, APEC, MEF, Anderegg, Urban Heat Bottom Line, Subsidies, Weathermen, IPCC Review, IPCC 5 Authors, Post CRU, Late Comments Melting Arctic, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food Crisis, Food vs. Biofuel, Land Grabs, IP Issues, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs, Carbon…
jjacquet | June 27, 2010Almost every hour I receive some new piece of information that I want to write about on this blog. And yet, as you'll notice, the posts are spotty. The truth is, there is simply too much to criticize. Just consider the oceans this week.
The IWC met to discuss whether to reopen commercial whaling, which, in terms of ethics, is a return to the Middle Ages. Reporters are still calling Daniel Pauly to get him to address the debate (there is no debate) that whales eat all of our seafood (of course they don't; we do). Apparently, the IWC did not reach an agreement so things remain the same.…
jgoldman | June 25, 2010Here at Thoughtful Animal headquarters, we're starting a new series of seven-question interviews with people who are doing or have done animal research of all kinds - biomedical, behavioral, cognitive, and so forth. Interested in how animal research is conducted, or why animal research is important? Think you might want to do some animal research of your own someday? This is the interview series for you.
I've asked friend, scibling, and trusted advisor Bora Zivkovic (twitter, blog) if he would be our inaugural interviewee. In addition to his extensive blogging here at Scienceblogs, covering…
terrasig | June 24, 2010KEY WEST, FL - After a few days of work and research discussions here, it's time for a couple days of true vacation. The Family Pharmboy chose to leave the 101°F of North Carolina for the cooler and breezier climes of the gorgeous and peaceful Florida Keys. We're here to right a wrong and to also dump this year's summer vacation cash with some of our old and new friends who are currently being adversely affected by the terrible news on the northern Gulf Coast.
However. There is no BP Deepwater Horizon oil in the Florida Keys.
Repeat: There is no BP Deepwater Horizon oil in the Florida Keys.…
clock | June 23, 2010There are 31 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
Evolutionary Dead End in the Galápagos: Divergence of Sexual Signals in the Rarest of Darwin's Finches:
Understanding the mechanisms underlying speciation remains a challenge in evolutionary biology. The…
illconsidered | June 22, 2010 Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Disruption News Sipping from the internet firehose...June 20, 2010 Chuckles, Bonn, BASIC, COP16+, Cochabamba, Kyoto Fraud, Free Science, Changing Oceans, CO2 Link Bottom Line, Subsidies, MCF, Doubts, Doubts 2, IPCC Review, Post CRU, Late Comments Melting Arctic, Polar Bears, Geopolitics Food Crisis, Agricultural Outlook 2010, IP Issues, Food Production…
dblum | June 20, 2010
During the 1970s, international aid agencies came up with a brilliant plan to stem a plague of water-borne illnesses in the Asian country of Bangladesh. They would underwrite the installation of wells in disease-troubled villages, tapping into the cleaner ground water below.
They would use simple, relatively inexpensive tube wells, place thousands of these over-sized drinking straws into the shallow aquifers. And these straws - millions of them - would suck up the cleaner, microorganism free water in healthy abundance.
At first, it seemed to work like a blessing. Infant mortality…
oracknows | June 17, 2010If there's one thing that the loons over at the anti-vaccine crank blog Age of Autism might actually be somewhat good at, it's leaping on a news story and trying to liken it to their unshakable pseudoscientific belief that vaccines cause autism. Unfortunately for them (and fortunately for our our amusement), the merry band of anti-vaccine activists over there is so utterly, irredeemably bad at constructing a coherent and logical metaphor that whenever they try the result comes out something like these two posts:
If President Obama Had Been Talking About the Autism "Spill"
Olmsted on Autism…
illconsidered | June 14, 2010 Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Instability News Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck YearsJune 13, 2010 Chuckles, Bonn, REDD, COP15, COP16+, IPBES, IPY-OSC, Northern Weather, Backgrounder Bottom Line, Total Subsidies, Subsidies, UNCFG, Free Science, Beeville Hoax, Post-CRU Melting Arctic, Polar Bears, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food Crisis, Food vs. Biofuel, GMOs, Food Production Hurricanes…
sastyk | June 9, 2010Gotta love Richard Heinberg's latest - suggestions for Oil Exec quotes on peak oil:
"We believe fears about Peak Oil to be . . .
a. unsupported by evidence.
b. utter rubbish emanating from cretinous doomsday cultists.
c. compellingly credible.
d. strangely arousing.
"People have been forecasting the end of oil . . .
a. for decades.
b. since the age of the dinosaurs--no, since the Big Bang.
c. with ever-greater urgency--especially since 2005, the year of maximum world crude oil production so far.
d. just to tick me off.
"Such predictions have always…
egrossman | June 7, 2010By Elizabeth Grossman
Expressions of concern for oil spill response workers' health and safety grew this past week as reports arrived by way of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network that BP was denying workers' requests for respirators. On June 4th, the Wall Street Journal reported that Representatives Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and James Oberstar (D-Minn) had written to the EPA and Department of Labor demanding that all response workers be provided with "proper protective equipment, including respirators."
Anna Hrybyk, program manager of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, also reports that in…
illconsidered | June 7, 2010 Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Instability News Information overload is pattern recognitionJune 6, 2010 Chuckles, Bonn, REDD, COP15, COP16+, Oxfam, UNEP, Growing Atolls Bottom Line, Carbon Tariffs, Eli-EPA, Commitment, IAC, Post CRU, Royal Revu Melting Arctic, Prediction, Antarctica Food Crisis, Food vs. Biofuel, Food Production Hurricanes, Monsoon, GHGs, Carbon Cycle, Temperatures…
jgoldman | June 7, 2010
A few weeks ago I emailed Vanessa Woods and asked her pretty please if I could review her book. After reading all of the bonobo and chimpanzee papers written by Vanessa and her husband Brian Hare (both now at Duke) over the years, as well as their research on domesticated dogs and silver foxes (some of which I wrote about on the old blog), I couldn't wait to check out the book. So I was super excited to find it waiting in my department mailbox this past Wednesday morning. By Friday night, I had read the book cover to cover.
So, here's the short review: read this book.
And, okay, watch this…